Council Tax Cost Cutting: reduce your band and grab any discounts Discussion Area

rabbitlover

It still makes me very cross that houses in my road have had huge amounts of work done and yet I am still in the same band because of when the 'valuations' took place.

lincroft1710

rabbitlover said:

It still makes me very cross that houses in my road have had huge amounts of work done and yet I am still in the same band because of when the 'valuations' took place.

All dwellings in England and Scotland have to be valued as at the same date 1 April 1991 (Wales is 1 April 2003) whenever they were built. CT legislation does not allow a band to be increased on account of work done by the current owner since 1 April 1993 (E & S), 1 April 2005 (W).

rabbitlover

Yes, I am well-aware of the ‘rules’ regarding valuations (I did comment on that) ... I was merely commenting that it still makes me cross.

lincroft1710

rabbitlover said:

Yes, I am well-aware of the ‘rules’ regarding valuations (I did comment on that) ... I was merely commenting that it still makes me cross.

So you have been brooding on this for 2 years!!

Airwolf1

lincroft1710 was just trying to help with an explanation. If there is a revaluation of domestic properties you may end up being ok then. The houses with extensions etc may be in a higher band than yours at that time. 

rabbitlover

Think we are talking at cross-purposes here.  After a long break I have suddenly started receiving email notifications again.  Just gets under my skin sometimes when more and more extensions are being built by neighbours so vented my sour grapes.😌

trinity666

lincroft1710 said:

trinity666 said:

Hi,
I am trying to understand how the bands work, I am in a newly built flat (2 bedroom one) and while reading on the recent news on council tax reviews, checked the band in my postcode and found that lot of flats in the same building have a lower band, so wondering how this works in a building like this?
The building mainly has 1 bed flats and 2 bed flats. I see there are a lot of 2 bed flats that are in band C and a few of 2 bed flats in band D (like mine), though I do not have full details of most of the other 2 bed flats, there will be some 50 to 100 square feet feet difference between the various flats, can such small difference make the band different?
Is there anyway one can get the sqft values of each flat? The land registry site seems to only have the price of the flats, I wanted to get this so that I can compare this to mine before referring to VOA as they mention the property compared should be in similar size (but do not know what is the threshold of difference)? 
Thanks

VOA do not value per sq metre (or sq ft). 50 to 100 sq ft larger is quite a size difference, a double bedroom can measure 100 sq ft. There is no single "threshold of difference", the band break between C and D for a 3 bed 1970s semi could be 100 sq m, but a 1980s semi 2 streets away could be 95 sq m

Hi,
Thanks for the reply. When I asked for band review based, they keep responding that the properties compared should be similar in size but do not seem to specify a size.
My property is around 780sq ft 2 bed apartment and banded in D, but no way to find out how big the other flats in the same building are, as they all vary a little bit. Only information I have is, around 70% of flats are in band C and are mix of 1bed, 2beds and from the information I remember when the flats were on sale, is that the 1 bed and 2 beds were around : 580sqft, 600sqft, 640sqft, 680sqft, 740ft, 780sqft.
There is only one property from the list I gave to VOA that I know is exactly the same size as my flat and is in band C, lot of others are also in band C but do not know the size spec apart from the sale price of the flat, sale price of most of the 2beds are very close.
Given that I do not have the exact size information regarding other flats in the same building, I wonder how I can provide with comparable information? There seems to be no public registry of exact space of each flat.
Thanks

lincroft1710

trinity666 said:

lincroft1710 said:

trinity666 said:

Hi,
I am trying to understand how the bands work, I am in a newly built flat (2 bedroom one) and while reading on the recent news on council tax reviews, checked the band in my postcode and found that lot of flats in the same building have a lower band, so wondering how this works in a building like this?
The building mainly has 1 bed flats and 2 bed flats. I see there are a lot of 2 bed flats that are in band C and a few of 2 bed flats in band D (like mine), though I do not have full details of most of the other 2 bed flats, there will be some 50 to 100 square feet feet difference between the various flats, can such small difference make the band different?
Is there anyway one can get the sqft values of each flat? The land registry site seems to only have the price of the flats, I wanted to get this so that I can compare this to mine before referring to VOA as they mention the property compared should be in similar size (but do not know what is the threshold of difference)? 
Thanks

VOA do not value per sq metre (or sq ft). 50 to 100 sq ft larger is quite a size difference, a double bedroom can measure 100 sq ft. There is no single "threshold of difference", the band break between C and D for a 3 bed 1970s semi could be 100 sq m, but a 1980s semi 2 streets away could be 95 sq m

Hi,
Thanks for the reply. When I asked for band review based, they keep responding that the properties compared should be similar in size but do not seem to specify a size.
My property is around 780sq ft 2 bed apartment and banded in D, but no way to find out how big the other flats in the same building are, as they all vary a little bit. Only information I have is, around 70% of flats are in band C and are mix of 1bed, 2beds and from the information I remember when the flats were on sale, is that the 1 bed and 2 beds were around : 580sqft, 600sqft, 640sqft, 680sqft, 740ft, 780sqft.
There is only one property from the list I gave to VOA that I know is exactly the same size as my flat and is in band C, lot of others are also in band C but do not know the size spec apart from the sale price of the flat, sale price of most of the 2beds are very close.
Given that I do not have the exact size information regarding other flats in the same building, I wonder how I can provide with comparable information? There seems to be no public registry of exact space of each flat.
Thanks

780 sq ft is big for an apartment, so being in Band D doesn't seem untoward. There is no registry of property sizes as there is no legal requirement for such information. To further complicate matters, there are 3 methods of measurement, Gross External, Gross Internal, Net Internal.

Just give the VOA what you can and see what they come back with.

garymarsden

We live in a house with an Annexe that is occupied by my parents. I have recently discovered that my parents should be exempt from paying Council Tax on the Annexe due to the Class W exemption that took effect from 1 April 1997. We all moved into the property in 2009 and my youngest parent was 65 in 2011 (I believe they must both be 65 or over). I informed the council that my parents lived in the Annex in 2013 since they believed it was empty and nobody bothered to inform me of the exemption otherwise we could have claimed then. I have contacted the council and they say they will only refund the past 6 years. Are they entitled to do this or should they refund back to 2011?

lincroft1710

garymarsden said:

We live in a house with an Annexe that is occupied by my parents. I have recently discovered that my parents should be exempt from paying Council Tax on the Annexe due to the Class W exemption that took effect from 1 April 1997. We all moved into the property in 2009 and my youngest parent was 65 in 2011 (I believe they must both be 65 or over). I informed the council that my parents lived in the Annex in 2013 since they believed it was empty and nobody bothered to inform me of the exemption otherwise we could have claimed then. I have contacted the council and they say they will only refund the past 6 years. Are they entitled to do this or should they refund back to 2011?

I am a little confused. You state you understand your parents became eligible for the Class W in 2011, but you told the council they lived in the annex in 2013.

Some councils will cite the statute of limitation as the reason they will only refund 6 yrs overpayment and I understand that some councils no longer keep CT payment records beyond 6 yrs. However there is no good legal basis for the former but the latter may be difficult to prove beyond 6 yrs unless your parents have identifiable records of their CT payments for that time.

You need to go back to them and pursue it further.